


Familiar

by YanaWrites



Category: Haikyuu!!, ハイパープロジェクション演劇「ハイキュー!!」| Hyper Projection Play "Haikyuu!!" RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Canon, Swearing, kuroo is a dummy, like a lot of it, tsukki thinks to much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21952345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YanaWrites/pseuds/YanaWrites
Summary: “You really haven’t changed a bit, have you.” Kuroo leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. A voice called from the gym, and suddenly Kuroo sat up. “Oh, fuck, that’s right. I was gonna ask if you wanted to do some extra practice. Ya know, for old time’s sake.” Extra practice sounded about as enticing as another set of diving drills, and it must have shown on Tsukishima’s face because, after a moment, he laughed and said, “That’s okay, no pressure.”A cocktail of nostalgia and to many thoughts.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 5
Kudos: 81





	Familiar

If Tsukishima had to do another set of diving drills, he was probably going to wind up killing someone. His arms ached, his legs were led. Every fiber in his body was spent. Somewhere in the distance, a volleyball smacked against the freshly waxed gym floor. ‘Team Building’, the coach called it. Somehow Tsukishima failed to see how the practice was supposed to do anything other than drive him insane. It was tedious, annoying, and, worst of all, pointlessly exhausting. 

The campus was quiet over the summer. The dorms emptied, and the few students that took classes this semester went home early. Only the athletes remained. It was training-camp week, and, so far, nothing had made Tsukishima regret continuing volleyball more. Spending two sticky weeks in the un-air-conditioned dorms surrounded by new teammates that managed to be even more irritating than Karasuno used to be was hardly something to look forward too. 

God, Tsukishima was actually starting to miss Hinata’s enthusiasm and Kageyama’s holier-than-thou attitude. He sank down onto the grass, shivering slightly as a cool breeze nipped at his sweat-covered skin. He loved it, though. Volleyball. Finding patterns in the opponent’s attacks and slamming the ball back onto their side of the court was addicting.  _ Trying _ , for once, was addicting. Each taste of victory left him starving for more. Would he make it as a starting player this year? Tsukishima didn’t think so. 

“Tsushima, right?” A shadow stretched long in the grass beside him, illuminated by the door of the gym. 

He glanced over his shoulder at the stranger. Tall, messy dark hair, and a shit-eating grin that made him seem entirely punchable. “It’s Tsukishima.”

The guy plopped down next to him, seeming entirely too familiar for Tsukishima’s liking. “Oh, sorry, it’s been a while.”

“Excuse me, do I know you?” He scooted away from him almost on instinct. He recognized him. Of course, Tsukishima recognized him. He was the middle blocker on the starting lineup, and he was a total pain in the ass. 

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“Not really.”

He laughed awkwardly, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “I suppose it  _ has _ been a while. I was Nekoma’s captain, Kuroo Tetsuro.”

Kuroo.  _ Kuroo _ . Suddenly Tsukishima remembered. Extra practice, blocking advice. Bokuto and Hinata begging for spikes until they had to be forcibly removed from the gym. Kuroo Tetsuro, the guy who got middle blocker of the year. He looked different, older, somehow. Somewhere along the line, he had gotten his ears pierced and tamed the mess of hair that used to flop over the side of his head. It was still  _ awful _ , for the record, but a different kind of awful. 

“Sorry.” Tsukishima couldn’t help the tired half-smile that grew on his face. “I couldn’t recognize you now that you own a hairbrush.”

Tsukishima didn’t expect Kuroo to laugh, but he did. It was loud and crooning, and exactly as Tsukishima remembered. Kuroo’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, and Tsukishima wondered if that was the way it was back in high school too. 

“You really haven’t changed a bit, have you.” Kuroo leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. A voice called from the gym, and suddenly Kuroo sat up. “Oh, fuck, that’s right. I was gonna ask if you wanted to do some extra practice. Ya know, for old time’s sake.” Extra practice sounded about as enticing as another set of diving drills, and it must have shown on Tsukishima’s face because, after a moment, he laughed and said, “That’s okay, no pressure.”

Kuroo stood, dusting off a few leaves of grass that clung to his gym shorts. They were red with ‘Nekoma’ written down the side in block letters. He hesitated for a moment as if words were on the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill out. And then, after a pause of bated breath, footsteps receded into the gym.

***

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Kuroo would appear again, popping up like an overplayed pop song. They were on the same team, after all. And like an overplayed pop song, Tsukishima couldn’t quite get Kuroo out of his head. On any other day, or perhaps any other week would be more accurate, this wouldn’t be a problem. His brain could play out ‘what-ifs’ on repeat, and it would be its own hypothetical nightmare. This week, however, Kuroo seemed to be around every turn. Every corner. In the morning, Kuroo was on his team for a set of three-on-three matches. During receiving drills, Kuroo was his partner. The final straw was lunch. 

Grass brushed softly against Tsukishima’s ankles as he sat in the field. The tree behind him provided little shade and even less comfort, but its spot away from the crowded picnic tables offered an easy sort of silence. One just far enough away to hear the siren song of conversation, but not close enough to lure him in. The managers had made mori soba, probably in hopes of cooling everybody down enough to make the afternoon bearable. Tsukishima ate slowly, wondering if the energy it took to lift his arm to his mouth was worth it. 

In the distance, Kuroo picked up his bowl, laughing slightly with the manager that was in charge of ladling out the soup. He turned, took a few steps to the table where his friends sat, and then for some godforsaken reason, he looked over his shoulder. Something, be it pity or realization, dawned in Kuroo’s eyes, and he changed course. 

“Fuck,” Tsukishima muttered, watching as Kuroo came closer. 

“Tsukki!” Kuroo said when he was close enough to talk without having to raise his voice. Theoretically, he couldn’t have known how the nickname made Tsukishima’s stomach twist, but the half-smile Kuroo always seemed to have stuck on his face was too knowing for comfort. “Mind if I sit with you?” 

_ Yes. _ Tsukishima wanted to say, but instead, he found himself shrugging noncommittally. 

For a long time, nobody said anything. The trees had their funny sort of conversation with the grass, a push and pull of sorts. The boys laughed from across the lawn. Maybe, Tsukishima thought, Kuroo regretted sitting with him. Maybe it would have been better if Kuroo had stayed with his friends. 

Tsukishima, unsurprisingly, did not make friends easily. He had been told it was the equivalent of trying to shuck a particularly stubborn clam in hopes that one might find a pearl. A fruitless endeavor that often left people frustrated and empty-handed. Tsukishima didn’t like clams. It wouldn’t surprise him if Kuroo were looking for a pearl, of sorts, right now. As if a little small talk and high school nostalgia would suddenly turn Tsukishima into something valuable. The trick was, there was no pearl to be found, no reward for getting past the shell he had put up. He was stubborn all the way through. He was  _ valuable _ even if he wasn’t the best volleyball player, even if he wasn’t particularly charismatic, even if he was a sarcastic bastard down to the very core of his being. 

“You know,” Kuroo said when he only had a few noodles left in his bowl. “When I said you really hadn’t changed since high school, I was wrong. Kinda.”

Tsukishima watched as Kuroo set down his chopsticks. 

“You’re different. Sadder, somehow.” Kuroo looked as if he wanted to shove the words back into his mouth the second they plopped out of it, sitting wet and ugly on the grass between them.

“Sadder isn’t a word, Kuroo,” Tsukishima chastised. “And who are you to tell me what I am?”

  
“Nobody, I guess.” 

And then it was silent again as they sat in the annoying sort of tension that always grew when people had something to say but didn’t have the balls to say it. 

“I don’t know anyone here,” Tsukishima said, “I mean  _ really _ know someone. Not kind of know a guy I met one time in high school. It’s just… different.”

“You know me, kinda.” Kuroo tipped the last of his soup into his mouth, and Tsukishima had to focus on not watching the way his tongue traced his lips when he was done. 

“I liked you,” Tsukishima said, because he might as well get it off his chest. Kuroo glanced over at him, surprised. He continued, more because it wasn’t the sort of declaration that could be made without some form of explanation than because he actually had more to say. “Back in high school, I mean. So it’s a little weird to have to talk to you again.”

Maybe it was a blunt way to say it. Maybe it didn’t need to be said at all. But Tsukishima had always made a point of letting people know what he thought of them, and this was no different. If he was being entirely honest with himself, he’d have said that he still liked Kuroo now. That his cheshire-cat grin was somehow just as annoying and endearing as it was back then. 

“You’re kidding me, right?” Kuroo laughed, “That’s stupid.” And then, as if realizing how that sounded, he added, “I mean, I like you, and I’m talking to you just fine.”

“You meant  _ liked, _ right? Past tense,” Tsukishima asked, adjusting his glasses as they began to slip down his face.

Kuroo stood, a strange look crossing over his face. “Yeah, sure.”

Like an opportunity slipping through his fingers, Kuroo walked away. What-ifs buzzed in Tsukishima’s mind faster than they had in a long time, and he found himself sitting up and standing to his full height. “Wait,” he called, taking a few large steps forward. Kuroo turned. “Do you want to grab coffee sometime? To catch up?”

Kuroo’s lips curved into a smile, one more genuine than he had worn earlier. He nodded. “It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays! This is for IsaIsa for the haikyuu secret santa 2019, I hope you like it! <3


End file.
